General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: To those who blame college students for majoring in the wrong subjects, [View all]cherokeeprogressive
(24,853 posts)Too hard? Working outside not acceptable? Consider construction workers to be part of the great unwashed? Surely bagging groceries doesn't pay more than working in construction. The notion that bagging groceries is a step up from constructive manual labor chaps my hide a little.
I'd bet one could find thousands of engineers and architects who worked their way up from the bottom after earning their degree, or started from the bottom and worked on the degree concurrently.
I could be reading things wrong, and god knows I've been wrong more than my share of times, but it seems to me there is a belief that having the degree creates the job or that having the degree entitles a person to step right into a high paying position relating to their chosen field of study. That is not now nor has it ever been the way the world works.
I know business owners who started at the VERY bottom and worked their way to the top. One has a degree and one doesn't. In both cases, it took DECADES. Both are childhood friends. One owns a chain of automotive body and paint shops and one owns an industrial flooring business. Both are very successful. The body and paint guy started working for his father as the lowest of the low out in the shop. The other worked as a carpet installer while raising a family and going to school.
"Got the degree, where's my job?" isn't a good outlook in today's economy. We lament the lack of manufacturing in the country today, but I'd have to ask this: What if we woke up to a plethora of manufacturing jobs tomorrow? How many college graduates would work the assembly line while waiting for that management position to open up, or the job in R&D?
There's been a disconnect somewhere when a future engineer chooses to bag groceries rather than getting their feet wet in the construction trades.